The political corruption of the US Supreme Court: This isn't getting the attention it deserves.

As if stacking the courts with Republican judges wasn't bad enough, The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing lobbying group, has been "training" judicial clerks and requiring those clerks to sign loyalty and secrecy pledges. This is an outrage and it hasn't received much attention in the press. Our judges and the people who work for them should have but one interest and that is the interest of the American people. They shouldn't be signing secret loyalty pledges to a group of rich donors. I'm without words. This is an outrage! It should be front page news. But it isn't. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/heritage-foundation-clerks-judges-training.html

Google AdSenseGuest Advertisement

Every Republican you, me, and anyone else has known over the last forty years needs to roll one way or the other, either getting on the trolley or admitting this corruption is what they were chasing the whole time they screamed about corruption.

And, of course, we can repeat that for any number of issues.

Not that this is new; thirty years ago my father spun scare stories about commies that basically came down to granola-eating, hackey-sacking, foil-wearing blasé sameness. What was it, fourteen years ago Republicans had people arrested at a campaign rally for wearing t-shirts they didn't like?

Was it '04, or '08 when they got caught destroying voter registrations? Now they're just looking for excuses to kick people off the rolls, and how much do we hear them bawling about election fraud?

Listen to Republicans complain about what's wrong with government; they're telling us a great deal about how they govern.

Google AdSenseGuest Advertisement

Democrats are sleeping at the wheel as is their custom. They should be screaming bloody murder about this. They should be fighting an anti corruption campaign. Democrats need better leadership. Unfortunately, I don't think that's on the horizon for them. If the shoe were on the other foot, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al. wouldn't let this go unnoticed.

Google AdSenseGuest Advertisement

Not all of them, but it's kind of like the thing about civility: Democrats lose votes throwing down hard; remember that when it comes to Dems throwing down against the right wing, the right wing presently has progressives and the revolutionary left to cheerfully help them out. Society has carved out a niche for Democrats: They are the chosen center we will never trust. Their job is to try to achieve the impossible average. Historically, this is what voters have asked of them the whole time my political conscience has been aware, and that's '79-80; Americans denounce them as liberal extremists and then complain when they come back to the center. And the thing is that somewhere in there, some part of Democratic supporters ought to be able to figure this out and stop rolling over every time the right wing orders them to.

Meanwhile, I'm not as worried about institutional failures to recognize the potency of the progressive upwelling; those new MCs will undergo the same institutionalist rightward roll when they are challenged from their left. I just keep hoping that one of these generations will learn the lesson.

So in the end, the best thing the Democrats could do is pick a new skipper. Schumer's basic order is to sleep at the wheel, and wake him when the rest of the Party and nation alike come through for him.

I have written about this before and perhaps I am naive and writing out of turn, but all democracies especially the USA need to have enshrined constitutionally The requirement that an " Arms length" "Department of anti-corruption" be maintained permanently publicly reporting to congress and POTUS combined ( in this case - parliament in others perhaps) with established and regular routines of investigation, auditing and surveillance and public censorship immunity.
All governments should have provisions that remove the need for trust to begin with as trust would not be relied upon but reinforced and protected.
example:
USA
Branches: Legislative, Executive, Judicial, and Anti-Corruption.(Integrity)
Making 4 primary branches instead of three.
A situation as described by the OP would not be allowed to even start yet alone persist.
All members of government would be subject to routine audits and vetting.
etc...
Due to the possibility of political and financial ( extortion - blackmail- collusion etc) interference in the Judiciary, the need for this approach is and will become increasingly significant due to globalization and foreign vested interests in the democratic processes. IMO
It is necessary to protect the integrity of your judiciary and other institutions from false corruption allegations and fake news etc.
The FBI and existing law enforcement would also be subject to routine audits from a relatively independent body. Again affording protection for those who are not corrupted.

In the West Minster style Governments
House of Reps, Senate + Anti corruption executive branch, reporting publicly to Parliament (whilst in session) on a regular basis.
A tad like anti virus software running regular scans of your computer and mobile devices.
just thoughts...

It is necessary to protect the integrity of your judiciary and other institutions from false corruption allegations and fake news etc.

Click to expand...

The nation has been here before, in terms of Supreme Court corruption. The infamous Santa Clara decision, for instance, establishing corporate personhood except that it doesn't, really.

And as for corruption, there was an 1896 decision that didn't involve any particular corruption, and would be overturned fifty-eight years later. Yet in that grotesquerie, known as Plessy v. Ferguson, which created the doomed and dooming standard of "separate but equal", the only justice on the Court who got it right happened to be a former slave owner.

The Court hasn't utterly wrecked us, yet. Conservatives are going to give it their best try.

Americans denounce them as liberal extremists and then complain when they come back to the center.

Click to expand...

Uh, no.
The Republican Nameless movement denounces them as liberal extremists, and continues to do so no matter how far right of center they roll.
Nobody complains about them coming back to the center - that would be a hard left and libertarian turn, and they haven't made one of those in decades.

Not all of them, but it's kind of like the thing about civility: Democrats lose votes throwing down hard

Click to expand...

The Dems didn't lose all those Statehouses and Congressional seats by throwing down hard.
There's little evidence that would happen now, either.
There's plenty of evidence for the likely continuation of the consequences of not throwing down hard.

Aye!
But if you wish to drain the swamp and keep it drained constitutionally enshrined integrity provisions are absolutely necessary, for the future. IMO

Click to expand...

does "The Swamp" mean the lobbyists ?
LoL
"Drain the swamp" was an open threat to the democrats while throwing gas on the fire of the conspiracy theorist antigovernment alt-right to gain votes.

there was never any "swamp draining" going to take place because that would undermine all the private industry, church and government connections and relationships(standard american commerce relationships).

has he done anything to remove corruption ?
because "draining the swamp" in common working class language means remove corruption.
did he point out any government corruption ?
HC doing her speach circuit was on hand to give links to the tin foil hat conspiracy anti government alt-righters to fool them into voting for him.
it worked well and he didnt expose or name any type of actual fraud going on inside the US government because if he had, he would have alienated the entire leadership of the Republican party and he would not be able to run and win going independant.

now "The Swamp" .. does it now include the Supreme court ?
Does installing a hard line political made man into the suprmee court make it a swamp ?
doesnt really matter since that ship sailed, no one really expects it to be balanced so it becomes an irrelivent subject context.
note the gerrymandering rule of the Federal court is being handed off to the supreme court to say if the republican party can gerrymander to hand themselves the election win.

when the current rule of law is dictated by the "now" it is like saying when it rains free money from the sky.

the US democracy is owned(an american cultural term for being in control of as a capitalist ideology of total ownership) and ruled by an authoratarian panel of right wing republican political actors(notice how the term state-actor suddenly becomes uncomfortable when used for themselves by themselves lol)
what will the average working class person think of the supreme court by mid way through next year after the bun fight that is going to appear in the papers about the gerrymandering laws and the inplications it then throws on the federal courts as being a big-ol waste of money run for and ruled by extremist democrats(tin-foil-hat thinking)

"The Swamp" is a colloquialism describing "The Beltway", or, the political apparatus in Washington, D.C. The latter is named after the freeway around the city, but the town is a swamp of low-grade, nod-and-wink corruption deemed somehow acceptable or, at least, not unacceptable, for not being as bad as other corruption; or, at least, that's the general idea. The range of what is at the very least not unacceptable grows perpetually, as you might imagine.

"The Swamp" is a colloquialism describing "The Beltway", or, the political apparatus in Washington, D.C. The latter is named after the freeway around the city, but the town is a swamp of low-grade, nod-and-wink corruption deemed somehow acceptable or, at least, not unacceptable, for not being as bad as other corruption; or, at least, that's the general idea. The range of what is at the very least not unacceptable grows perpetually, as you might imagine.

Perhaps my glib use of the phrase "drain the swamp" was a little inappropriate. I took, it to mean corruption that is non-specified. Perhaps incorrectly?

The thing is:
It is common practice for companies to install integrity provisions especially where cash handling is involved. The issue is about removing the need to trust the employee, ( although trust is essential of course) and to providing empirical evidence to either Innocent mistake or deliberate theft etc...when a loss is indicated.
Why Governments do not employ a similar integrity strategy for higher levels of government I am unsure of.
All members of the government from POTUS to Congress, to Senate to DOJ etc should be routinely assessed with regular public reports published.
"Trust and verify" I think is the old saying.

The degree of sophistication involved when it comes to corruption is considerably greater than at any other time in history IMO. This sophistication is increasing daily.
Global vested interest means that the pressure being placed on Government members and law enforcement by way of huge financial incentives, "brutal extortion" and political extremism means that the need for regular and routine integrity audits becomes more and more necessary.

Example:
Simply being covertly informed that you are being targeted for corruption is enough to shut down the member. There has to be a way that a member can protect themselves from (even implied) pressure to act inappropriately.Another:
Local law enforcement members are being subjected to extreme extortion, ( threats against family and friends) by organized syndicates in ways not seen before.
How do they protect them selves against this brutal form of persuasion?

Perhaps my glib use of the phrase "drain the swamp" was a little inappropriate. I took, it to mean corruption that is non-specified. Perhaps incorrectly?

Click to expand...

Seems you're well and fine; in the case of D.C., yeah, we actually do call it the Swamp. Weirdly, even if you're using a general context, it still works out.

Besides, we're Americans. We mock a British naming tradition by inventing silly names, like when Zonker Harris was in the House of Lords, having a title at Punt-on-Thames; or Steven Brust rollicking through the Khaavren Romances, with titles at Shallowbanks, Clover-on-Top, Threetree, Ninestones, and so on. I mention it because we Americans are much more self-awareself-centered needlessly paranoid. We call it draining the swamp because too many people think sandblasting the asscrack sounds gay.